King Stakh's Wild Hunt

“Well — well — well,” Dubatoŭk said, embarrassed. “Let it be. I myself hardly ever came to see you, knowing that you would be upset. We were friends with Raman. But no matter, my dear, we are, of course, worldly people. We suffer from overeating and too much drinking; however, God must look into people's souls. And if he does, then Raman, although he was wont to pass the church by but not the tavern, has already long been listening to the angels in heaven, and is looking into the eyes of his poor wife, my cousin. God — He's nobody's fool. The main thing is one's conscience, whereas that hole in one's mouth that asks for a glass of vodka is a vile thing. And they look at you from heaven and your mother does not regret that she gave life to you at the price of her own: such a queen have you become. And you'll soon be getting married. From the hands of your guardian into the fond and strong hands of a husband. Well, what do you think?”

“I hadn't thought of it before, and, now I don't know,” Janoŭskaja suddenly said.

“Well, well,” becoming serious, said Dubatoŭk. “But… the man should be a good one. Don't be in a hurry. And now another present… It is an old costume of our country, a real one. Not some kind of an imitation. Afterwards go and change your dress before the dances. There's no point in wearing all this modern stuff.”

“It will hardly suit her, and will only spoil her appearance,” put in some young miss of the petty gentry, trying to be flattering.

“And you keep quiet, my dear. I know what I am doing,” growled Dubatoŭk. “Well, Nadzeyka, and the last thing. I thought long and hard about whether to give this to you, but I am not accustomed to having what does not belong to me. This is yours. Among your portraits one is missing. The row of ancestors must not be broken. You know that yourself, because you belong to the most ancient of all the families in the whole province.”

On the floor, freed of the white cloth covering it, stood a very old, unusual portrait, the work, apparently, of an Italian painter, a portrait which you can hardly find in the Belarusian iconography of the 17th century. There was no flat wall in the background, no coat-of-arms hung on it. There was a window opening into the evening marsh, there was a gloomy day overhead, and there was a man sitting with his back to all this. An indefinite greyish blue light shone on his thin face, on the fingers of his hands, on his black and golden clothes.

The face of this man was more alive than that of any living man, and it was so surprisingly dismal and hard that it was frightening. Shadows lay in the eye-sockets and a nerve even seemed to quiver in the eyelids. And there was a family likeness between his face and that of the mistress, but all that was pleasant and nice in Janoŭskaja, was repulsive and terrible here. Treachery, cunning, symptoms of madness, an obdurate imperiousness, an impatient fanaticism, a sadistic cruelty could be read in this face. I stepped aside — the large eyes that seemed to read the very depths of my soul turned and again looked me in the face. Someone sighed.

“Raman the Elder,” Dubatoŭk said in a muffled voice, but it had already occurred to me who it was, so correctly had I imagined him from the words of the legend. I had guessed this was the one who was guilty of the curse, because the face of our mistress had become pale and she swayed back slightly.

I don't know how this deathly-still scene would have ended, but someone silently and disrespectfully pushed me in the chest. Involuntarily I recoiled. It was Varona making his way through the crowd, and in making his way to Janoŭskaja, he had pushed me aside. Calmly he continued walking without begging my pardon, he didn't even turn round, as if an inanimate object were standing in my place.

I was born in a family of ordinary intellectuals, the intelligentsia who from generation to generation had served the Polish gentry, who were themselves learned men, but plebians, from the point of view of this arrogant aristocrat, a man whose forefather was the whipper-in of a wealthy magnate, a murderer. I had often had to defend my dignity against such, and now all my “plebian” pride bristled.

“Sir,” I said loudly. “You can consider it worthy of a true aristocrat to push a person aside without begging his pardon?”

He turned round.

“You are addressing me?”

“You,” I calmly answered. “A true aristocrat is a gentleman.”

He came up to me and began scrutinizing me with curiosity.

“H'm,” he said. “Who is going to teach a gentleman the rules of good behaviour?”

“I don't know,” I answered, just as calmly and as bitingly. “At any rate, not you. An uneducated priest must not teach others Latin — nothing will come of it.”

I saw, over his shoulder, Nadzieja Janoŭskaja's face, and was happy to notice that our quarrel had diverted her attention from the portrait. The blood had returned to her face, but in her eyes there flashed something resembling alarm and fear.